Spanning Sync: gCal and iCal play nice

One of the more annoying aspects of gCal is you just can't easily update any of your calendars when you're offline, as far as I know. And with iCal you can't update your calendar online. Spanning Sync seems to solve both problems by syncing all the sets of gCals and iCals on whatever computers I set it up on. After the 15 day trial it costs $25/year or $65 as a one time purchase, but it seems to be working really well and I might purchase a license if it continues to function as it has so far.

Speeding up and slowing down audio

http://twelveblackcodemonkeys.com/fastspokenword.htm is a decent article on speeding up and slowing down audio, and the commentary that comes after it is priceless. They list several programs with this functionality including:


music morpher made by audio4fun

Amazing Slow Downer

Sox (Sound Exchange) is another great program for modifying digital audio.

1 program - Cool edit Pro. It has since become Adobe Audition

Transcribe! from http://www.seventhstring.com

Audacity

I'm trying Audacity first since it's free. =)

-apk

Combining files in iTunes

1. Download Join Together -- this allows you to combine any files in iTunes.

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=jointogether

2. Download ChapterTool -- this allows you to set chapter marks in big audiofiles

http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Audio/Apple-Chapter-Tool-Beta.shtml

3. Combine all of the files from one book, etc. using Join Together. Join Together allows auto-setting chapter markers.

4. Convert the one file book to aac.

5. Change the extension of the file from .m4a to .m4b

6. Delete the file from iTunes and drag-and-drop it back into the application.

Text-to-Speech

AT&T Natural Voices Mike 16khz, professional is an awesome voice.

Boot Windows from External HD on a Mac

taken from:

http://www.dualbootguru.com/bc%20-%20booting%20external%20hdd.shtml

Booting Windows XP from an External Hard Drive

You can easily Boot Windows from an external hard drive if you are worried that the Windows partition will take up too much space on your internal hard drive.

Requirements: An external USB 2.0 hard drive and a 5 GB partition on your Mac hard drive.

Note: this information taken from the user gradenko on the OnMac Forums.

This solution requires access to a PC and is somewhat time-consuming.

Although somewhat confusing, this solution allows you a lot of excess space on your Windows partition that you would otherwise not have. When you partition your hard drive, you usually set a definite amount of space to Windows, say 5 GB. Well if you want more than 5 GB and you've already partitioned, you're screwed. Now, on an external hard drive, you can use as much space as you need, but not take up space you don't need.

1. Use the Boot Camp Assistant to create a 5 GB Windows XP partition.
2. With your PC and Windows XP SP2 CD, use this guide to create a USB enabled Windows XP SP2 installation CD.
3. Plug your USB 2.0 external drive into your Mac.
4. Put your new Windows XP SP2 CD into your Mac and boot holding down the 'C' key.
5. Windows installation should begin.
6. When you are able to choose the drive, make sure to choose your USB drive. You may have to pre-format your external USB 2.0 drive to NTFS (mine was already formatted).
7. You will soon be warned that your C drive needs to be formatted. This is OK because Windows XP needs to write some temporary data to the internal startup disk. It will format the 5GB Windows XP partition that was created in Step (1).
8. Follow the installation prompts until installation is complete.
9. When your Mac reboots, be sure to hold down the Option key. You will be given the choice to boot either to your OSX installation, to Windows XP, or to the Windows XP CD. Choose the Windows XP hard drive.
10. The normal XP installation will continue. You will be warned about unsigned drivers. This is normal, and occurs because you tampered with the XP installation files in Step (2). NOTE: My installation froze here once. I just rebooted and picked up where I left off, which worked just fine.
11. Once Windows XP boots up, insert your drivers CD created with the Boot Camp Assistant. Install your Boot Camp device drivers, and you should be ready to go.

Easy Windows Disk Image (e.g. .iso) mounting

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/620/xp_small_free_way_to_use_and_mount_images_iso_files_without_burning_them